BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:35 AM

Abdul, I don't see how that relates to the opening post.

I would think that the rape and murder of a four-year-old should carry the maximum penalty the law allows. And if that's capital punishment in Dubai, well. . . .

I am opposed to capital punishment in general, but I think that the perpetrator of such a heinous crime has, essentially, resigned from the human race and should, at the very least, be isolated and restrained. Life in prision at minimum.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:49 AM

People seem very keen to jump on my phrasing but ignore what I'm saying. So you don't like the my phrase 'religious lobby' ? Then look at the oarenthesis immediately after it: '(or lobbies)'. I am not lumping together all people who display religious faith.

I am not unaware of doctrinal differences (and it is, quite frankly, insultingly patronising to suggest I am). I'm British, I grew up seeing people in Northern Ireland kill each other on the grounds of (among other things) SECTarian (emphasis intentional) differences. I watch the News, I;ve seen the results of religious conflicts in the Middle East. I know that Faction X in the Anglican chuch is fighting Faction Y over women bishops and homosexual rights. Religious people seem almost addicted to combating the views of other religious people. Looking in from outside, it seems to come with the territory.

As for saying it's 'people' that do things - well no kidding. And from my atheist standpoint, religions are also made by people. To imagine that religions exist outside of their practitioners and consumers and enthusiasts seems very bizarre to me.

And how on earth can religion be "ethically neutral" when religions are so centrally concerned with providing ethical frameworks for their followers (less kind version: telling people how to live). Was the sermon on the mount ethically neutral????? How about all that 'thou shalt not...." stuff ? And the Koran ? 'Ethically neutral' would not be the first description to leap to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Uncle Rumpo
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:52 AM

I'm not a religious person.
I could take an appallingly bad persons life away from them
if it was a last resort solution to prevent them
committing further worse anti social crimes.


Not a difficult conclusion to come to.


really that simple.

I'd prefere not to.

But if I had to I could.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 11:33 AM

There are certain religious lobbies and religious fanatics, Smedley, and some of them do much harm. Granted. If that's what you're saying, then I have no problem with it.

There are also industrial, political, and financial lobbies of a non-religious nature which do much harm, needless to say.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 12:18 PM

"Our complaint is about putting the blame on an entire class of people,"
Religion isn't a 'class' Joe - it's a group of people within a society who adhere to a doctrine of superstion or other non-rational belief.
"industrial, political, and financial lobbies...."
All of which are tangible and opposable - religion messes with your mind and uses spiritual blackmail to do so.
Christianity has been responsible for many horrific crimes, from child rape (quite recently on a huge scale) to mass murder - don't make this just a Muslim thing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

Religion messes with your mind and uses spiritual blackmail to do so - or so says Jim Carroll.
Jim, do you have any rational proof of the universality of this statement?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 12:53 PM

Religion messes with SOME minds of people in all religion. We saw that with Moonies, Pat Robertson's followers (hell, Pat Robertson himself)! For some folks it doesn't take brainwashing--a light rinse would do.

But to suggest or state that religion messes up the minds of all people involved in religion is a foolish statement, and a moment's reflection would demonstrate that clearly.

It is disappointing to see usually erudite and logical thinkers descend to that depth. It ain't the "Limbo Rock"--it ain't about "how low can you go" IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 01:43 PM

It's called 'bigotry'.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:12 PM

"Jim, do you have any rational proof of the universality of this statement?"
You mean apart from a church that can promote abstinence and produce one of the largest and most organised paedophile rings?
Or an organisation which can boast "Give me a child of five and I will give you a catholic for life."
(Christian Brothers)
Sounds like brainwashing to me.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:29 PM

There is some brainwashing in most large religious organizations, most governments, most corporate businesses, most schools and most large organizations of all kinds.

If that's the only part you can focus on, though, Jim, it seems to me you're determined to see only the bad part in things. It's the "glass is totally empty" point of view you appear to be espousing when it comes to religion.

Have you ever studied the positive philosophical concepts which are the driving force and main origin of all the great religions? Concepts such as...

- moderation in most things is a healthy practice
- non-violence improves human relations
- generosity is more beneficial than greed
- love casts out fear
- truthfullness is more beneficial than lying
- you should not take things that don't belong to you
- you should share with others
- best to respect others and then they will probably respect you
- anger consumes the vessel that contains it
- bitterness is an unproductive emotion
- your addictions lead you further into alienation
- peace is found within rather than by accumulating possessions
- you should treat others with kindness, not cruelty or disregard
- you can't judge anyone until you have experienced what he has
- all people have intrinsic worth, even if they're different from you
- we are all of one human family
- all life is sacred in its own way

Etc...

You should try studying those things. Study yoga or Buddhism or Taoism...(there's no God being in those at all). Focus on something good for a change rather than just on the various bad things that have been done here and there by various people because they chose to misuse a religion for their own immediate gain.

Let's see if you are capable of singing a tune which has more in it than only a single note...

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:35 PM

Jim, there's no doubt that such things happen in churches - and in just about every organization you can think of. And those things are wrong - no question there, either. I do my best to make sure those things don't happen within my sphere of influence, which is quite strong within one parish and fair to moderate within one diocese (because I join with like-minded people in the diocese to ensure that problems are controlled). And within my parish and my diocese, things are generally pretty good.

Some people are sheep - maybe it's better to say that many people are sheep. And where there are sheep, there will most always be a wolf waiting to take advantage of them. If it isn't somebody in a church, it will be a Murdoch publication or FoxNews or the like - or maybe even a Mudcat troll.

Shit happens, Jim. If you take away the place where it happens, it will happen somewhere else. You need to target the people who are actually causing the wrongdoing. You're right in saying that bad things happen in churches - but good things happen in churches, too. The institution of "church," as I said before, is ethically neutral. It's people who do bad and good things.

So, I must conclude that you have failed to prove either the universality or the rationality of your statement, "Religion messes with your mind and uses spiritual blackmail to do so". Sorry, but I've been a church member all my life, and have experienced little or no mind-messing or blackmail. I've seen it happen, but not very often.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:43 PM

Well said, Little Hawk!!

####

Smedley, referring to your post of 30 Jan 10 - 02:49 a.m., please forgive me if I assumed you were not fully cognizant of the history of religions or of the extent of doctrinal decisions. What you posted—very similar in tone to the previous knee-jerk anti-religion posts—led me to believe that was the case.

On the one hand, many people seem to assume that "religion" is a monolithic body of belief and summarily dismiss all of it. Oddly enough, the very same people will point to religious people with contempt and say, "See? They can't agree about anything!" Well—you can't have it both ways.

In the meantime, there is a large number of churches—of a number of different denominations—who set their differences aside and cooperate ecumenically and do a tremendous about of good in the world, more often than not filling in holes in what might be called the "social safety net."

At least, that's the case in the United States.

Several of the churches (not all the same denomination) in my neighborhood cooperate to make sure that the unemployed and homeless in the area have somewhere to go to get a good, nutritious meal every day (usually within a church's facilities and manned by volunteers from the congregation—and no, they do not have to pay for the meal by listening to a sermon!), and the church to which I belong, in addition to participating in this program, is deeply involved in finding low-cost housing for low income people or temporary no-cost housing for people who would otherwise have to sleep on the streets. And that's only a part of what they do.

When aspects of religion make the news media, it's usually to report something highly outrageous (and patently un-Christian) such as pompous pronouncements by self-ordained demagogues like Pat Roberson or Jerry Falwell. Such as Robertson's recent remark about how the Haitian earthquake was God's punishment visited on Haitians because they practice voodoo!!!

Idiot!!

Nevertheless, this is the kind of stuff that makes the news. And an amazingly large number of people who have no religious affiliation assume that this sort of mean-spirited stupidity reflects the beliefs of all Christians (I would question whether people like Robertson can honestly call themselves "Christian" at all). The same way so many people seem to assume that every Muslim is automatically a terrorist. I know a fair number of Muslims (a fellow named Moustafa lives in the same building I do)—peaceful, kind-hearted people, like most of the Christians I know—and they despair over the negative beliefs that so many people have about them.

Due to ignorance.

So please forgive me if I have knee-jerk reactions of my own from time to time. But most of the time, my "knee-jerk reaction" happens to be highly appropriate to what I am reacting to.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:03 AM

That should read ". . . the extent of doctrinal devisions," not "decisions."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: wysiwyg
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:36 AM

I find I must, again, offer an alternative view. Springs from Anglicanism, about authority.

In the original languages, what MOST people object to in the Bible about "authority" are very different concepts from what we, now-so-PC, understand under several LATER languages (and cultures) as "Bad Authority."

To simplify (which is very NON-Anglican and for which I will take a lotta heat in various quarters):

"GOOD Authority" is authority ceded by free (non-coerced) choice, by a strong person, within a concept called "right relationship," to a power the person acknowledges to be a higher power. Not necessarily "higher" in terms of more-power, but power of a higher SORT than that power which the person has for one's own.

Like a 220 line is a higher-order power than 110, OK, that is higher in more-power terms, and is sorta going to seem to behave in a different way than 110 the minute you put it to work. But more importantly, electric power is a different SORT of power than human-muscle power, and you want to be in right relationship to both 110 AND 220: a mistake with one will get you a strong tingle, but a mistake with other will get you t'rowed across the room.

"Power" and "Authority" are not at ALL the same things, and they can be Good, or Bad or-- even-- [gasp] BENIGN!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:56 AM

"Christianity has been responsible for many horrific crimes, from child rape (quite recently on a huge scale) to mass murder - don't make this just a Muslim thing"

And what about the many horrific crimes committed by Aetheist regimes? We all read Sozhenitsyn et al back in the 70's, remember the Gulags and the hundreds of thousands who never came back, or the thousands upon thousands of slaves who died building The Road Of Bones and still lie beneath it?

Don't make this just a Christian and Muslim thing.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:05 AM

That point is often made, but those awful regimes never did what they did **in the name of** atheism. They used the excuse of particular ideological expediencies.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Neil D
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:11 AM

I think I'd say that religion is ethically neutral. It's people who do good deeds, and it's people to who commit atrocities. But to indicate that religious people are either likely or unlikely to commit misdeeds because of their religion, is just wrong. If they don't use religion as their excuse for doing right or wrong, they'll invent another reason. But the real reason is that they've chosen to do what they've done, by free choice (albeit under the influence of myriad factors).

-Joe-

    I respectfully disagree. People like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Major Malik Nadal Hasan probably do fit that pattern, alienated misfits who have been seduced by cycnical ideologues into using religion as a rationalization for their desperate actions. On the other hand I have no doubt that the men who flew planes into buildings did so purely out of the awesome strength of their faith and would never have done such for any other reason. I'm NOT laying this on the head of all Islam or attacking religion in general. I feel that the good and ill done in the name of religion are in near equal proportion, close enough for argument sake to being impact, if not ethically, neutral. But surely, those 19 men DID commit misdeeds because of their religion. Great faith untempered by liberality scares the hell out of me.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:49 AM

"That point is often made, but those awful regimes never did what they did **in the name of** atheism. They used the excuse of particular ideological expediencies"

They (the 'leaders' within those regimes) did what they did by the abuse of the power and authority which their positions within those ideologies bestowed upon them. No more, no less. The communist ideology is ostensibly and of itself a fair and just system. But it ignores the effect of human nature - that there are individuals who will always seek to achieve their own personal ends irrespective of any negative effect that has on others. That's the point. And those kinds of individuals exist within pretty much all ideologies and philosophical groupings.

It's not the philosophies or ideologies that are at fault, it's the minority of utter bastards who use those frameworks to achieve their own ends, whether it be controlling millions of people to the point of virtual slavery, or bumming choirboys.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:57 AM

Well, Neil-
I'd say that many (probably most) suicide bombers fit into the "sheep" category - in thrall of an ideology. That ideology may be religious or non-religious, it really doesn't matter. And still, it comes down to people - those who give the orders, and those who obey.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:46 AM

Spot on Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:26 AM

"Don't make this just a Christian and Muslim thing."
I don't, I hate and fear all murderous fanatics, whether they do it for politics, oil or their particular make of god.
"never did what they did **in the name of** atheism."
Exactly right.
"Shit happens, Jim."
It doesn't JUST happen Joe; it happens because intolerance creats the circumstances for it to be allowed to happen, and the church - any church, should never be allowed to say that it was nothing to do with them. There are already far too many tangibles; money, power, territory.... which cause suffering and killing without throwing ghosts and bogies into the argument to confuse things even more.
Clerical child abuse happened because the church heirarchy either participated or looked the other way. Now an unrepentant and unapologetic church is fighting to be left in control of schools so they can continue to manipulate the minds of the very children they abused.
This argument is about religion - pure and simple; how did it go "Let he who is without sin.....!".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 06:34 AM

The bottom line is that All religions consider that believing in things - Gods, angels, miracles, reincarnation - without empirical evidence is a good thing - they call it faith and generally prize it as a high virtue, if not THE highest virtue.

One could hardly ask for a better recipe for trouble.

This is why it is reasonable and unbigoted to say 'religion makes me sick' as long is is made quite clear that not all religious believers make one sick! That would be bigotry.

The only reason that Christianity isn't as dangerous as Islam - and a brief look at America's record in the Middle East makes one wonder about that - is that secularism has largely drawn its teeth - not from any intrinsic virtue in Christianity itself. Islam lacks an Enlightenment.

I must say that I am amused and a little irritated by those on this thread who take the virtues common to all humankind and decide that they are 'religious' virtues. They are not. They are the evolved survival strategies of a social species that inevitably embed themselves - alas all to imperfectly - into the human artefact that is religion.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:14 AM

That's an exceedingly crisp and pertient post, Pastinaken. it will be interesting to see how the [please insert collective term for people with significant adherences to a religion, as when I try to do this succinctly I get clobbered] respond to your points.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:35 AM

Agreed, Smedley. I think the term you seek is simply "The Faithful" {note quotes & caps} — a designation to which I can't see they themselves could take any exception, while signalling to the rest of us the precise form of the irrationality with which we are required to deal.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:44 AM

"That's an exceedingly crisp and pertient post, Pastinaken."
Seconded
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Smedley
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:45 AM

It's turning out to be a good day for smart and snappy scepticism!

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:07 PM

The main and most important theme of all great religions, my friends, is not believing in something for which there is no physical evidence....but putting together a positive and rational philosophy for dealing effectively with human life, oneself, the world, and other people and lifeforms. It's about being in relationship and governing your own consciousness...2 things which are absolutely real and which we all experience. It's about handling one's relationships and one's consciousness in the most postive, harmonious, and beneficial ways one can. That is the crux of religion.

That is what interests me about all religions, and that's why I've studied them...not to worship a "God", but to learn more about myself and about life. The other stuff which can't be proved "empirically" (because it isn't physical...such as gods, angles, reincarnation, etc) is interesting in its own right, but it's a side issue to the main issue which is learning how to live a good and happy live as a human being.

The stuff which isn't physical cannot be proven or disproven...it can only be personally experienced....same as your own thoughts, dreams, and feelings can only be personally experienced. That doesn't mean your own thoughts, dreams, and feelings aren't real. You know they're real, because you experience them intimately. No one else can quantify them or subject them to empirical analysis, but they are of direct interest to you. And that's as it should be.

The reasons for your hostility to religion are obvious, and quite understandable, but I think you're focusing on a side issue...not on the main ground of religion.

You're fixating on a specific belief someone else has which you don't have, and objecting to it. That's a waste of time. Everyone in the world believes some things you don't believe. That's life. Just focus on what you believe, enjoy it, make good use of it, and accept that other people are different from you...and that's okay.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

Pardon the typos. Should have been "angels" not "angles", and there were a couple of others too.

You know, guys, it looks to me like you're proceeding from a negative viewpoint, and that just doesn't lead to any kind of good place. You seem to want to have an "enemy" to hurl invective at...that enemy being "religion". This doesn't strike me as any more helpful than some wacky evangelist raving on about how everyone who doesn't belong to his form of belief is going to go to hell.

The same impulse drives all people who look for enemies, in my opinion, and it's not a nice impulse. It's based on some kind of fear...or some kind of desire to dominate others. It's a dangerous impulse in both the overtly religious (some of them) and the overtly atheistic or non-religious (some of them).

Why not look into the positive aspects of other people's beliefs instead? There are both good and bad aspects to most religions, good and bad practices, and that depends on how the people in those religions decide to apply them. And that is all there is to it. I could say exactly the same thing about politics, science, technology, banking, industrialization or any other large realm of human thought and activity.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:47 PM

A couple more thoughts here. People thirst for meaning. Everyone does. From the time you are born you begin to search for meaning in your life. At first it is found in a very small radius...mostly relating to your mother, father, and your family surrounding. From those you derive a sense of meaning that is absolutely precious and vital to your sense of yourself.

Later it starts spreading out to a wider radius. You being to find meaning in neighbours, friends, people you meet at school, and so on. It's mostly a case of relationship on one level or another.

You begin to wonder what your life is about? What is its purpose? You have to find a purpose of some kind in order to have some sense of direction. Some people just settle for satisfying immediate appetites...as an animal would. But for many people, that's not enough. They look further. They look into greater ethical questions and more extended forms of relationship...with other people, with nature, with animals, with society, with the planet.

It is primarily out of people's burning need to find meaning and purpose in their lives...and an explanation OF their lives...that all the great religions and rational philosophies have arisen, as have our various ideas about basic ethics. That search is what has ennobled people, raised them above mere brute survival, and created great art and culture and magnificent creativity of every kind.

Why not focus on that instead? Focus on the positives instead of bitching about the fact that some people believe in angels or in a "god" or in reincarnation, and you don't? ;-) No one said you had to! (At least I sure didn't.)

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: wysiwyg
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:50 PM

Well, I think the lack of response to my earlier post indicates that either people read it and agree with me, and thus drop out of the thread, or else they disregard it for whatever reason and then keep shooting arrows around it for whatever reason. It was positive, it gave a starting point for commonality, and it offered non-spirituality-type language to grab hold of huger concepts that often run off the shared-language track.

Or it could just be that this thread is mostly a place for men to hold a perpetual pissing contest.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:45 PM

You know, I thump on Little Hawk's head on some of the political-type threads for what I would consider a kind of debilitating cynicism about who controls what and what can be done about it, but on THIS matter, he is spot on! As is (not surprising, considering who she is in real life) Susan.

There is a lot of evil done in the world in the name of religion. Which is to say that the evil-doers need an excuse for their skullduggery, so they fasten onto some "higher authority" in order to absolve themselves from the evil they do. Very often, that "higher authority" is religion.

But—examine the core religious doctrines themselves. In Christianity, that would be what Jesus said, which you can easily find in a good red-letter edition of the Bible, NOT what Pat Robertson says He said! Nor, for that matter, what Paul said He said.

Paul was a stiff-lipped and humorless bloke at the best of times, and my personal opinion is that all too many of the more fundamentalist Christian churches tend to emphasize Paul's writings over what Jesus taught. Obviously, I don't consider everything in the Bible to be "the infallible Word of God," and I'm willing to debate that with anyone any day of the week!

And the same holds true in the Muslim world. I am not all that familiar with the Koran, but I have had Muslim friends tell me that, although there are definite differences between Islam and Christianity, the core beliefs are very similar. In modern times, the controversial concept of Jihad is primarily based on wanting to drive colonialists out of historical Islamic lands rather than to wage wars of aggression (i.e., not really into "turn the other cheek."). Although some Muslims have construed it otherwise.

Maybe someone can explain the moral differences between a "Jihad" and a "Crusade." If any.

As to the matter of "All religions consider that believing in things - Gods, angels, miracles, reincarnation - without empirical evidence is a good thing," this is an oversimplified idea of what's really going on. Granted, there are those who believe in an actual, physical, anthropomorphic God—a fearsome father-figure with a full beard and dressed in something like a toga, who lives on Arturus 12, who keeps precise ledgers of everyone's sins, marks the fall of every sparrow, and hurls lightning bolts at anyone who pisses Him off. Or in beings with wings and halos called "angels."

When I was a wee sprat (maybe eight years old), I asked my mother about angels. What are they, really? I think she gave me an excellent answer. She said, "Angels are good thoughts. When you get a really good idea, or suddenly think of something nice that you can do for someone, that's an angel. We think of them as having wings because they can fly in at any time and we don't know where they come from."

That gave me a clue to work on. Later on, that was solidly delineated by the writings of people such as Joseph Campbell (The Masks of God, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, others, in addition to the excellent PBS series, "The Power of Myth," with Bill Moyers).

As Campbell explains, it is a mistake to believe that because something is a myth, it is, therefore, false. A myth may not be literally true. But it often is true in a much broader, metaphorical sense.

Campbell said that where religious folks often go off the rails is when they believe—and insist that others believe—that a metaphor is an actual, historical fact.

Without going into a Masters' Thesis dissertation on the subject, there may not be physical entities such as gods, angels, and devils, nor geographical locations (Terra Incognita. Here be Dragons!) such as Heaven and Hell, but they do exist as concepts. At one point, Jesus says that those who treat others badly or who ignore the needs of others may just as well be relegated to "Gehennah," which was an actual location to the southwest of Jerusalem. It was a garbage dump, and also where what sewers Jerusalem did have at the time emptied. In other words, Jesus wasn't saying that they would burn in Hell for eternity, He was saying that such people were—essentially—a waste. No good to themselves or anyone else.

A bit harsh, perhaps, but not everything that the gentle Jesus said was full of sweetness and light.

As to Heaven and Hell:   What have you done in your life that, after you have fallen off the twig, will be remembered by others? Or what kind of legacy have you left in terms of being a benevolent influence on others—or the world in general? What have you done in your life that will live on after you, rippling into the future, even when your name is forgotten?

Isn't that a kind of "afterlife?" And wouldn't the way in which you are remembered, for good or ill, be a sort of heaven or hell?

Metaphor!

'Nuff said!

Thus endeth the sermon for today.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 11:29 PM

I must say what Little Hawk considers 'religion' is very benign and harmless - I've no problem with it at all.

However he must admit that most mainstream religious believers across the board would consider him eccentric (at best) for considering that faith in supernatural beings is not central to religion!

Would that his gentle viewpoint was truly typical of religion. But it isn't, and I respectfully think that it should more properly be filed under 'philosophy of life' - and a very good one at that.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Neil D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 12:04 AM

But to indicate that religious people are either likely or unlikely to commit misdeeds because of their religion, is just wrong.

I'd say that many (probably most) suicide bombers fit into the "sheep" category - in thrall of an ideology.

   
    It seems to me that these are contradictory statements, unless you don't think religion is an ideology.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 01:32 AM

Well, here's the definition of ideology from the Random House Dictionary:

1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.
3. Philosophy.
a. the study of the nature and origin of ideas.
b. a system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation.
4. theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature.

I would say that in common usage, "ideology" usually has a more negative implication. If you take this definition, then it would seem that almost everyone has some sort of ideology.
Whatever the case, the "sheep" are the ones likely to be in thrall of an ideology [religious or nonreligious], while more independent thinkers tend to pick and choose - and there are plenty of independent thinkers in religious denominations.
Yeah, I accept (generally) the body of doctrine of my Catholic Church, including the Scripture stories (liberally) - Catholic teaching is a rich part of my life. However, I don't think it has motivated me to do anything bad - I go in for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and stuff. Not as dramatic as suicide bombing, and hardly something anyone would consider offensive. Actually, I live in serious right-wing territory, and we DO get strong objections to our attempts to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. If my efforts are offensive, I offer no apology.
I believe in God, and I make no apology for that, either. I wouldn't define God, though. I think I like the practice of Orthodox Christianity, of using contradictions to define God. But for me, God is somehow wound up with all goodness and love and peace, and the innate unity and interdependence of all that exists. I can't really say I have much faith in absolutes - my beliefs in social justice and love and peace are about the closest I come to absolutes.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 11:23 AM

Hi, Pastinaken.

I'll comment some on your last post.

However he must admit that most mainstream religious believers across the board would consider him eccentric (at best) for considering that faith in supernatural beings is not central to religion!

Perhaps. Most religious AND non-religious people might think me "eccentric" in some sense or another, because I am kind of a nonconformist to a lot of common approaches in people's ideologies. As Joe mentioned, virtually everyone has an ideology. That is, they have some kind of philosophy, some set of assumptions they're acquired from the human culture around them, and their thoughts and actions are based on their ideology. Most people's ideologies are, in my opinion, silly and unrealistic in some areas...but then, they might think the same about me. ;-) That's the way it goes. I tend to question almost everything, take another look at it, and see if I think it's valid. Many people never question their basic ideological assumptions, because it would scare them to do that. Fanatics, whether they are religious or political fanatics, are people who absolutely refuse to even consider questioning the basic points of their ideology. They think they KNOW. That's a dangerous attitude, and it leads to extremism and intolerance.

I don't think anyone is in a position to say they KNOW something for an absolute certainty unless they have experienced it in the most direct way. Then they have something to go on. If they haven't experience it directly, then they are just making an assumption based on what they heard someone else say. Thus the "sheep" are led down the garden path by political and scientific and religious authorities. Those authorities might be right in what they say. They might be wrong. They might be partly right and partly wrong. But the "sheep" are the people who always assume that the authorities are entirely correct in what they're saying. I assume no such thing.

I consider each idea on a scale of probability...but keep in mind that I don't know for sure until I've experienced it directly. Some things are far more likely than others.

Would that his gentle viewpoint was truly typical of religion. But it isn't, and I respectfully think that it should more properly be filed under 'philosophy of life' - and a very good one at that.

I find the idea of "God" interesting. You can look at it on so many levels...as to just what "God" means. The notion of a "God" who is like some kind of super-powerful old guy in a robe who sits on some kind of heavenly throne and judges...well, that seems tremendously unlikely to me. On the other hand, there are ideas of God as a form of innate presence (in all things) that are much more subtle. Some people find something within themselves that they term as "God". What they are finding may be the higher aspect of their own personality...that is, the side of them from which comes love, truth, conscience, kindness, clarity, etc. It may be entirely their own or it may be something they share with all living beings. Who am I to say? If they find comfort in it and gain strength from it, who am I to object?

There are literally millions of ways of looking at it.

Now, there are also a number of really significant spiritual or religious paths that have nothign to do with a deity, but rather with governing one's own consciousness and one's own behaviour in the most natural and effective way. Among those would be yoga, Taoism, Buddhism, and various other Asian approaches to self-discipline and achieving enlightenment. Those ways aren't about worshipping a deity, they're about gaining better mastery of your own consciousness and behaviour.

In some of those disciplines there is a general belief in reincarnation (as something that can happen...doesn't mean it HAS to happen). Is reincarnation a valid concept? Perhaps. I find it reasonably likely, based on some of my personal experiences and some recorded incidents I've read about (a great many, actually), mostly where young children had very clear memories of an earlier life and those memories were checked against various recorded information and found to be very accurate...and there was no other very likely explanation than that the child had lived an earlier life as another person.

But I can't say for sure. I just consider it likely, that's all.

Now, here's a wonderful statement from Robert A. Wilson about belief:

"Don't believe anything. Regard things on a scale of probabilities.
The things that seem most absurd, put under 'Low Probability', and
the things that seem most plausible, you put under 'High
Probability'. Never believe anything. Once you believe anything, you
stop thinking about it. The more things you believe, the less mental
activity. If you believe something, and have an opinion on every
subject, then your brain activity stops entirely, which is clinically
considered a sign of death, nowadays in medical practice. So put
things on a scale or probability, and never believe or disbelieve
anything entirely.

-Robert A. Wilson (interview with "innerview")


I love that. I think he's nailed it. "Sheep" are people who believe utterly in their chosen set of assumptions and their usual habits and they will kill on account of it. A suicide bomber is one such. A man who pilots an American plane at 20,000 feet and follows the order given him to drop some hideously destructive bomb on a city full of people may be another...because he's not thinking for himself. He's letting his commanders do the thinking.

Thus is most of the evil in the world perpetrated, by many "sheep" following the orders of their commanders, and fully believing that they are doing the right thing, because it either never occurred to them to question it...or they just didn't dare to break ranks and face the consequences.

I am reluctant to be part of any power structure or chain of command. I wish to think for myself. The fact that I do consider reincarnation to be quite likely, for example, arises entirely from my own observations and my own thinking on the matter. I didn't get it by belonging to any religion or following any religious leader's instructions as to what I should or should not believe. It's not up to anyone else what I should or should not believe. I decide what makes sense to me. They don't.

Many people are so afraid of feeling uncertainty that they erect a wall of rigid "beliefs" around themselves like a fortress, and they spend the rest of their lives defending it...and attacking other walls of belief that are different from theirs. Pointless conflict driven by deep insecurity is what that is.

If they would not be afraid to just admit that they don't know for sure and just to work on a basis of probabilities, as Robert A. Wilson suggest, then they'd be a lot more open-minded and tolerant of others, and a lot easier on themselves.

I don't KNOW if there is a God. But there may be (in some sense). I don't KNOW if there is reincarnation. But there may be. I don't KNOW if human beings are really contributing to Global Warming in any significant way...or if there's in truth some much larger interplanetary cause for it that is way beyond anything we can do or affect. Either case may be true, and I don't KNOW. I don't KNOW if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and killed Kennedy. Maybe. I fairly much doubt it, but maybe. And so on...

If people would just have enough humility to admit that they don't KNOW 100% about most of the stuff they purport to "believe"...well, maybe they wouldn't be so damned hard on each other over their differences of opinon, eh? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

The argument that it is the people not the religion is the same one that it is people that kill people not guns. Religion is a weapon in the hands of many because it is a kind of a gun.
It blows people's ideas out of the water that don't agree with it.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 12:40 PM

"A bit harsh, perhaps, but not everything that the gentle Jesus said was full of sweetness and light."

Don, if you read the bible you can observe Jesus saying to people that don't believe in him that they will "wither and die" like leaves on a vine. Quite a dictator.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 01:34 PM

In the case of guns...guns are a neutral item. They are just a tool that can be turned to either a good or an evil purpose. A hunter-gatherer who uses a gun to provide himself with food is not doing an evil thing anymore than a hawk is doing an evil thing when he catches a rabbit.

A forest ranger who uses a gun to prevent a bear attack is not doing an evil thing.

A policeman who uses a gun to prevent a bank robbery is not doing an evil thing.

A soldier who uses a gun to defend his country against invasion is not doing an evil thing.

But the person who wantonly kills animals merely for sport is doing an evil thing (in my opinion), the bank robber who uses a gun to shoot a cop or a civilian is doing an evil thing, and the soldier who uses a gun to invade someone else's country without any real reason or necessity is assisting his high command in doing an evil thing.

So guns, like religion, are neither good nor evil in themselves. They just are. How you choose to put them to use is the crucial matter.

I've never used a gun on someone, and I've never used any kind of spiritual idea to hurt someone either. You cannot define religion as "bad" because some people choose to use it badly.

You also can't necessarily believe that everything it says that Jesus said in the Bible is 100% accurate and true. The Bible was written by a large number of different men, at different times, some of them long before Jesus, others quite some time after Jesus, and they all wrote down various things that suited their own viewpoint, the political mood of the time, what they'd heard from somebody else, what people wanted to hear, and what they wanted to believe...but not what was guaranteed to be accurate or true.

It's absolutely naive to imagine that everything said in the Bible about Jesus is accurate. When people have a point to make, either for or against Jesus, they will just cherry pick something out of the Bible and use it to justify their point. This tells one very little about Jesus...but it tells much about the person making the point. ;-)

If you want to get some idea of what Jesus is about, you have to read the entire Bible...plus a lot of other material (there are many alternative views about Jesus from different traditions outside the Christain mainstream)...think about ALL of it...and then come to your own best guess about what Jesus may have said and what he may have been like.

If you weren't there, you don't KNOW. Nobody KNOWS. We're all just guessing or repeating things we've heard or read somewhere...and we don't KNOW if they're true. You can only make your own best guess as to what is most probable and what is less probable.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 01:42 PM

Here's another thing about life. It's complex. You can't make up a set of "rules" that will neatly cover and solve every situation.

You have to deal with EACH situation as a unique case and use your own intelligence to decide what to do, not fall back on some damn "rule" you heard somewhere.

If you live by rules, you're just a robot. You're someone who reacts, but doesn't really think.

So if you make up a rule in your mind that guns are "bad" or that guns are "good", and base your decisions on theat rule, you've stopped thinking and you've just turned into a robot.

Same deal if you make up a rule in your mind that religion is "bad" or that religion is "good".

...or that women are "bad" or "good".

...or that money is "bad" or "good".

Stop living by these mental rules you made up and start thinking creatively instead. Become a man, not a machine.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 02:43 PM

I have been musing on whether to bother getting into this particular thread.
Some of you know my basic views from years of reading them, and they are often a winding path between some of the other views here...both positive and negative.
From my viewpoint, (which is the result of being raised a Methodist, then entering a full college course of Philosophy and gradually becoming non-religious,) there are so many addenda and sub-topics needed here to explore the issues and opinions raised, that I am at a loss how to start.

WYSIWYG commented that her post had gone without reply, so I will use it to show why I say there are so many other points to be raised.

(note: WYSI & I have compared ideas on these things for several years, and we mostly respect each other's attitude and opinions)

"GOOD Authority" is authority ceded by free (non-coerced) choice, by a strong person, within a concept called "right relationship," to a power the person acknowledges to be a higher power. Not necessarily "higher" in terms of more-power, but power of a higher SORT than that power which the person has for one's own.

She has made a clear, informative and internally consistent definition......with the relevant term to 'me' being 'internally consistent'. The problem is, for that definition to be useful, a person must already be within a system, i.e., religion, that acknowledges that there IS such a thing as a 'higher power'.
This is the situation with many of the concepts & beliefs that get tossed about when religion is discussed, and it is why I never seem to be able to totally agree with either of the more extreme views.
It is, simply, not a trivial point to recognize that the reason the word 'belief' is used for certain human ideas, from religion to other arcane & metaphysical concepts, is that that they ARE ...ummmm... beliefs, and not 'facts'. I cannot emphasize enough how non-trivial this point is.
   When anyone makes a statement asserting something about religion, either positive or negative, they are usually assuming some unstated premises that are often not obvious, even to the assertor. The result of this is that so many of these discussions/debates get hung up on just a clash of contrary beliefs, with no one trying to see the other side's perspective.

Why do I keep harping on the non-triviality of my point? Because there is often a practical, operant difference in the way folks of opposing views make decisions and view others in society.
It is not 'just' whether one believes in a 'higher power' or not: it is what one 'believes' that higher power wants done and what the consequences of NOT doing it are. I am not familiar with the details of what Islam requires of its faithful (and I suspect there is not universal agreement within Islam)....but I KNOW that some Christian groups expect (require?) that its members try to recruit non-believers and also 'witness' their beliefs by publicly attempting to have their beliefs accepted into secular areas. Other groups do not emphasize this as much.
You see where this is going? There is no one, simple, clearly defined set of beliefs....nor is there any simple, clear, unambiguous form of rejection of religious ideas. The result is that daily practical conflicts arise as both sides attempt to justify and argue their behavior, voting patterns, food choices, dress patterns....and posts on Mudcat.. *wry smile*.
   Seldom does anyone explicitly acknowledge their rock-bottom assumptions in religious discussions..pro or con.... even though arguments go on tediously based ON those assumptions, with neither side quite realizing exactly what they disagree about...or why!(Little Hawk does explain himself pretty well and often, but I keep telling him that his are SO general that they are like cotton-candy... he, naturally, disagrees ☺.)

So... Joe Offer and others suggest that religion as religion is "ethically neutral", and I see the point they are trying to make. But it is also the case that--- ☛the very existence of a set of concepts that cannot be demonstrated and which are variably but seriously interpreted all over the world becomes a practically NON-neutral topic by default.

**We cannot treat something AS neutral which, by its very nature, requires behavior that comes into conflict with those who do not accept its premises**

We can, with effort and tolerance, mitigate that conflict and 'get along', but the basic conceptual differences permeate life in ways we don't always realize.

It ain't easy, folks....and the only ways to make it easy would not be acceptable to either side. This is what being human and being able to 'reason' means.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: GUEST,Pastinaken
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 02:44 PM

Little Hawk, I still find everything you have written most interesting and reasonable. But may I point out that it all pertains to Little Hawk's view and experience of religion, not religion as it is generally understood by either the leaders and holy texts of the various faiths or by the vast majority of religious believers.

I therefore think that the comments I made in my original post still stand.

I could scarcely agree more with your final comment, 'become a man not a machine.' - that is, think creatively and assesss each idea you experience on its own merits.

Could I politely point out that this is not what most religions want a person to do? They all have quite rigid rules and a way of viewing the world that believers MUST (or at least should)hold.

The freedom we have in western countries to adopt only the parts of faiths that we like while abandoning others, or to adopt a syncretic approach to parts of different religions we admire, or to hold a mixture of religious/secular ideas about life (which seems to be your approach) is a freedom won FROM religion, in the Enlightenment -not a freedom granted BY religion.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 04:15 PM

Well, fortunately the spiritual material that I study does encourage me to think for myself, and does not lay down rules and restrictions.

I am just as disinclined as you are to let others do my thinking for me, and I have no interest in joining any formalized religious sect with any formalized set of rules.

Neither, however, do I believe that there is no basis for a spiritual viewpoint on life, and that seems to be the extreme that others wish to go to when they deny all forms of spirituality. They act like religious fundamentalists themselves, only from the exact opposite direction. They insist that others are "wrong" not to believe as they do. They insist that things other people believe can't have any basis. This is just as dogmatic and fanatical as insisting on a literal belief IN an organized religion's tenets, I think.

I see remarkably rigid intolerance and remarkably rigid forms of faith being practiced on both sides of that divide, and I don't care for it. They both pretend to have a certainty, but their certainty is based on faith, emotional preference, customary habits, and a set of rigid assumptions which they take for granted.

They appear to deserve one another! ;-) (I mean, the dogmatic religionist and the dogmatic anti-religionist.)

I agree about all the errors in thinking you point out in religions. Fine. I see similar errors in thinking amongst those who make hating and critizing religion their pet hobby. I think such people are psychologically ill, frankly, but it's a pretty common illness...just like unreasoning patriotism and other emotional obsessions.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 04:29 PM

GUEST, there is an aspect about the Bible—which includes what Jesus allegedly said—that is more than just a little "iffy." Which is why I do not regard it as "the inerrant Word of God," contrary to the beliefs of our fundamentalist confreres.

First of all, although I don't regard myself as a Bible scholar, I have done something that most people who use the Bible as a sort of "Boy Scout Manual" rarely do. And that is, I have actually read it. Not a verse here and verse there, but in large chunks, as if it were an anthology of novellas, short-stories, and poetry.

In college, I took a class in the English Lit department called "The Bible as Literature." It was made abundantly clear at the beginning of the class that we would not be discussing religion, we would be discussing literature, and reading the Bible as a literary work. Any attempts by anyone to veer into realms of religious discussion would be shortstopped.

In addition to the literary aspects of the Bible, the prof went into a bit of history about the book. It started as a disconnected accumulation of manuscripts and scrolls, which, over a period of time various religious councils argued and discussed which were "valid theologically" and which were not, rejected many, and assembled the ones they selected into a single anthology which we now call "The Bible" (which simple means "book" or "papyrus"). These manuscripts and scrolls were translated from Hebrew, Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke, incidentally), Greek, and a few other Near Eastern and Eastern European languages into Latin. Without printing presses, the only method of reproducing the book was to have it done by copyists. And these were usually young monks in monasteries.

Not all Bibles came out the same. Because, all too often, the head honcho in any given monastery, or someone else, like the local bishop, priest, or, for that matter, even the copyist himself (and a lot of them did this!) would edit certain passages to reflect their own beliefs or prejudices!

And that included some of the alleged quotations of Jesus!

Then, of course, there were the politicized bits of "editorializing." For example, in the Lord's Prayer, in which, initially (as far as anyone knows) the phrase was "forgive us our debts," the translators who produced the King James version (standard for many churches) changed it to read, "forgive us our trespasses." Why? Because of a plague of trespassers and poachers on the lands of the local lord or landowner. The intent was to convey the idea that such trespassing was a sin!

So—is it any wonder I don't take the Bible literally? And look askance at those who insist that "The Bible is the Inerrant Word of God?"

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not the only Gospels. And there are a number of groups of theologians who are combing through the four Gospels, plus other gospels (one of which is presumably written by James, Jesus' brother) in and effort to find out what Jesus actually said. This includes graded lists of quotations, with such divisions as "Probably did say," through a spectrum of potential authenticity to "Definitely did NOT say!" based on such things as:   inner consistency with other things Jesus is presumed to have said, and how many times had this particular gospel or presumed statement been "folk processed" before it was writen down by this particular scribe?

So—even a "red-letter" edition of the Bible should be taken with a grain of salt!

Little Hawk has written some very good stuff above.

There is no one on this earth more dangerous than the ideologue who is absolutely certain that he or she is right.

Don Firth

P. S. "Could I politely point out that this is not what most religions want a person to do? They all have quite rigid rules and a way of viewing the world that believers MUST (or at least should)hold."

Sorry, GUEST,Pastinaken, but not "all." I remember the pastor at the local Lutheran church holding up a copy of the Bible and saying, "This is not the Boy Scout Manual. It does not contain answers. It contains questions!"

Statements like "all religious" do this, that, or something else all too often say more about the prejudices of those who make the statements than it does about the religion.

P. P. S. One of the local evening news television weathermen (now retired) always closed his weather reports with the same statement—which ought to apply to all questions of religion as well.

"When in doubt, do the friendliest thing."

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:26 PM

How long ago was all this, Don? There's a lot of questionable material in there.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:48 PM

It goes back considerably farther than the Christian era. Many of the most central ideas in the gospels about Jesus, such as the "virgin birth" are found in much earlier civilizations going all the way back to Egypt and Sumeria. They were recycled religious ideas, brought into the time shortly following Jesus' death in order to more effectively market a new faith and make conversions. They would have been concepts much more familiar to the people of the time, and thus much more acceptable, than to a modern audience.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:09 PM

What material is 'questionable'? Most of that Don notes is similar to what *I* learned in history & philosophy classes ... and what I have read recently also.
I'm sure that some of it (as in stuff about 'other gospels') would be objected to by certain groups, but the scrolls are there and there is good evidence that they deserve as much credence as the usual ones.

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:36 PM

Intentional errors in the Latin texts -- never met any such things in my studies of both Christian and non-Christian sources. Besides most of the literate people in Latin didn't read the Bible at all but read commentaries on it like Lombard's Sentences. Once translations into   common tongues began to be made, they went back to the original languages, the manuscripts of which were amazingly free of error, as comparisons among themselves as well as against new manuscripts discovered in the Elizabethan era and more recently have shown.

"Trespasses" -- First off the Lord's Prayer occurs in two forms, one in Matthew with "debts" and one in Luke with "sins/trespasses". It is not "as far as anybody knew" always "debts" -- in the original Greek there are two different words being translated, one meaning "debts" and one meaning "sins". There was no crossover between the two. So that whole "as far as anybody knew" thing is utter fabrication.

Second, the "trespasses" translation goes back to 1526 with Tyndale, a full 29 years before "trespass" was first recorded to mean "go illegally on someone else's land" -- before that it was simply a synonym for "sin" (as far back as the 13th century).

And so on, and so on.

And before you come down on me as a fundamentalist, spare your breath. I consider the Judeao-Christian Scriptures the record of the attempts of a line of people to come to grips with their experiences of (as they thought) God. I'm far, far from a fundamentalist.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:00 PM

I'm not assuming anything about your personal beliefs or affiliation...(I do seem to remember you as being Christian/religious)

I don't have any personal opinions about "Intentional errors in the Latin texts ", but I have seen documented and explained many confusions, errors and omissions in various translations & versions....from the Aramaic to the dockyards Greek used when the scriptures were brought to Rome.

(I was raised saying 'trespasses', and had to work to change it when someone decided that was confusing.)

I do remember reading about various Gospels that were 'left out' for various reasons; the most famous being Thomas, Barnabus, Nicodemus and several others. Many scholars seem to think they were relevant, but despaired of getting them included after centuries of a Bible where even translation revisions brought complaints and cries of 'sacrilege!".

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:16 PM

"Left out" is a loaded term. As if the Church had no right to decide which books IT wanted to use, and should have been forced to use whatever was extant at the time. It's ridiculous. There were thousands of books around at the time, some of which purported to be Christian. Why the church shouldn't have been allowed to pick out the ones it wanted to treat as "Scripture" and leave the rest, I'll never understand. Let alone why they should be "included" nowadays. Anybody can put a manuscript or translation of an apocryphal book into print if they can find somebody to print it (or do it via vanity press if they so choose). Elaine Pagels has done a bunch. It's not incumbent upon the church, or upon present-day bible presses, to do it for you.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: How to rule by fear - Execute them
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:26 PM

Granted, mousethief, I was a bit fuzzy around the edges on the "trespasses" issue, but that word was something of a bone of contention in the putting together of the King James translation (various "Authorized Editions" put out from the early to mid-1600s—the very first in 1611). I'll try to find an authoritative source for that.

Brief overview of the King James Version.

The weatherman, by the way, was Ray Ramsey of KOMO-TV (CH 4). During the Sixties and into the Seventies as I recall.

I took the "Bible as Literature" class in the very early Fifties at the University of Washington. The teacher was Prof. Paul Trueblood. When Dr. Trueblood retired, the class was taken over by Prof. David C. Fowler, from whom I also took classes, particularly "The Popular Ballad" (the Child Ballads). I talked with Dr. Fowler some about his approach to the Bible class and it seemed to be essentially the same as Dr. Trueblood's.

But not all of my info about the Bible came from this source. At the church my wife and I attend (Central Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill in Seattle—CLICKY—where Pastor Shannon Anderson commented that the Bible contained, not answers, but questions), the adult forums have spent quite a bit of time on the early history and "genesis" (if you will) of the Bible, with considerable delving into, and discussion of, such things as the Q Gospel. Most fascinating!

And I have read rather widely of authors such as Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, Barbara R. Rossing, Bishop John Shelby Spong, and others.

An interesting overview of the history of the Christian church can be found in The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, by Charles Freeman. I am quite sure that much of it would get up the noses of a lot of religious folks, but Freeman is a very thorough historian and one would have great difficulty in attempting to fault his scholarship.

All of this may seem as if I am contradicting my stance in defending the Christian religion and religions in general from those who are hostile to religion and feel the world would be better off without it, but that simply isn't the case. My particular credo could not be adequately explained in the confines of these threads, but I am most definitely not opposed to Christianity or to religion in general.

But there are a number of "Christians," and adherents to other beliefs, that I think could use a good swift kick in the backside. Largely because of the pronouncements they insist on making, their hypocrisy, their lack of humility, and their refusal to acknowledge that the major component of religion—any religion—is mystery. Not the certainty of which they claim they are in sole possession.

Don Firth